The reservations walk in smoothly, and yet Nadine (28) closes her acclaimed restaurant in Ghent: « You just lose your motivation » (Ghent)

« I am very sad that the restaurant is closing, but I maintain that we stop at a peak, » says Nadine Zimmerman determined. Four years ago she took over Heritage, a fine dining restaurant in the Patershol, when she was only 24 years old. She grew up in Germany, worked in star restaurants in Peru and France and fell like a block for Ghent.

When Fabio Cammalleri and Sebastian Sandor Heritage opened in 2018, she started working as Souschef from the beginning. After three years she took over as a chef and owner. « We never prepared meat here, » she says. « We have a vegetable and a fish menu. »

Recently the restaurant again received a score of 13 out of 20 in the Gault & Millau guide. The reservations continue to run smoothly, but inflation is cutting firmly, says Zimmerman. « Food prices are disturbed nowadays and that is not the only thing. You just lose your motivation and your energy through that persistent inflation. »

Zimmerman finally decided to close the doors. Normally that went to be at the end of May, but « an overwhelming support and an overcrowded calendar » was postponed to 14 June. On June 21 and 22, the chef will have a big sale in the restaurant. Plates, wines, flowers and more go out for a shot.

« Being a chef and owner means that I have to answer a lot of time in emails, the accounting, the marketing and so on. I want to get rid of that. I want to be able to focus more on cooking myself. »

Zimmerman stays in Ghent, but switches to private dining. « I write the story of Heritage further, but in a smaller, freer way, » she says. The building that Heritage is in soon gets a new interpretation. Even before the Ghent Festivities, a French bistro would come.

Heritage, Rodekoningstraat 12, 9000 Ghent. www.heritage.gent